


Lizards and Monkeys

by illhaveapepperonytogoplease



Category: Ocean's 8 (2018), Ocean's Eleven Trilogy (Movies)
Genre: F/F, Fluff, Plotless Fluff, argument
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-28
Updated: 2018-07-28
Packaged: 2019-06-17 17:39:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15466617
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/illhaveapepperonytogoplease/pseuds/illhaveapepperonytogoplease
Summary: Debbie and Lou have an immature argument and someone's got to cave before it's resolved.





	Lizards and Monkeys

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks so much for the comments and kudos, as always, I love reading everything you have to say and the prompts you give. This is based off of Aird's comment on "You 'n' Lou." I hope everyone enjoys :)

“That’s not- _no one_ thinks that, Deb,” Lou says, stirring the sauce in pan as she looks across the kitchen at Debbie, who’s been writing on blueprints and sipping wine for the past two hours at their kitchen table. The TV is on in the background, the whole reason this argument started in the first place.

“I think it,” she declares indignantly, pointing her pen at Lou when she gives Nugget and Murphy-two of their six spoiled rotten dogs-some crackers. “Don’t do that, babe, they won’t stop begging if they know you’ll feed them.” Lou stares her right in her unbelievably sexy brown eyes as she hands Nugget another cracker, his slobbery mouth inhaling the food, tail wagging happily and hitting the lower cabinets loudly. “Now you’re just being an asshole.”

“Admit that I’m right.”

“You’re _not_ right!” Debbie exclaims incredulously, mouth opening in surprise and her hands flying up in exasperation. “King Kong would fucking decimate Godzilla in a fight; it wouldn’t even be close!”

“Godzilla is a hundred and fifty meter monster, King Kong is  _maybe_ eight meters tall,” Lou points out, placing five pieces of chicken in the pan and moving them around in the sauce. They’d been arguing about this for nearly thirty minutes now and Lou couldn’t see how Debbie, possibly _the_ most intelligent person she knows, would believe such a shitty theory.

“King Kong is a primate, which is considerably more intelligent than a lizard, so he could outsmart Godzilla. Size doesn’t matter, baby.”

“You tell that to all your lovers or just me?” Lou asks, arching her eyebrow as she watches Debbie huff in frustration, brunette hair blowing in front of her face before she takes a dramatic swig of wine. “King Kong would be squished like a bug.”

Debbie’s eyes flare behind her wine glass as she lets out a disgruntled sound, unable to speak for a few seconds because she’s drinking. “King Kong could trick Godzilla into-”

“Being a primate doesn’t make him a wartime strategist.”

“-walking off a cliff or into flames or something,” Debbie says, glaring at her as she continues to feed their dogs crackers. Realistically, Lou knows she shouldn’t do it-dogs have dog food for a reason-but when sweet, loving eyes are looking at you, begging for some harmless crackers, who can say no?

“What cliff is going to be oh-so-conveniently waiting for Godzilla to fall off of?” Lou asks, knowing what Debbie’s going to say and figuring out the math in her head to prepare her argument.

“I don’t know, babe, the Grand Canyon.”

 _Perfect_.

“Do you know how deep the Grand Canyon is?” Lou asks, not waiting for Debbie to answer. “It’s around eighteen hundred meters deep, about twelve times the size of Godzilla. Now someone who’s...two meters tall-that’s what, six and a half feet?-they can survive up to a twenty-five meter fall, some have survived higher. That’s twelve and a _half_ times the size of the person. Godzilla could survive falling off the Grand Canyon.”

Debbie stares at her for a couple seconds, mouth opening to say something before it closes and Lou’s actually foolish enough to believe the argument will end there so she returns to her chicken, looking down right as Debbie says, “ _Fuck_ you and your mental math bullshit.”

Lou laughs, knowing her ‘mental math bullshit’ had saved their asses during heists on countless occasions and turns the stove the down, placing a lid over the pan, letting the chicken simmer for a few more minutes so she can ask, “Still think Godzilla would lose?”

“Yes.” She writes something down on the blueprints and Lou can’t help but notice that she’s become better at multitasking-a ridiculous argument about fictional characters and the next heist of the century were not easy topics to balance out in a brain. “What if there’s a fire?” She stops writing, squinting angrily at Lou as she says, “I swear to God, if you say some shit about what percentage of the body’s surface area can be burned before a person dies, I will murder you right here and now.”

“Well…” Lou trails off, mouth twitching slightly in a smile when Debbie points her pen at her again threateningly. “King Kong _would_ catch fire easier, considering he’s got fur.”

“Hence, him tricking Godzilla into walking towards the fire.”

“Why is there a fire?” Lou asks, laughing at the ridiculousness of this argument.

“Baby-” Lou meets her eyes, the tone of Debbie’s voice serious and having a very why-did-you-just-ask-that quality to it. “-what movie involving freakishly huge animals _doesn’t_ end with blazing infernos?”

“‘Jaws’? ‘Cujo’? That movie you hate with the birds pecking everyone?” Lou asks, arms crossed and absolutely refusing to give in on this argument-it’s too insane of one to lose.

“Cujo wasn’t a freakishly huge dog, ‘The Birds’ had normal sized birds and you can’t have a fire in the ocean.”

“A boat could’ve burst into flames.”

“Then get Daphne to call up Scorsese-”

“Spielberg.”

“-and tell him he fucked up,” Debbie says, taking another sip of wine before she adds, “I’m not coming to bed until you say King Kong would win.”

“You better get used to the guest bedroom then,” Lou retorts as she puts the cooked chicken on two plates, knowing from experience that Debbie couldn’t stay away from their bed after an argument-even a serious, angsty one-for more than three days.

“I will,” she challenges, even though she moves her foot off the chair next to her so Lou can sit down and accepts the chicken with a smile.

“I’m concerned about your mental state right now, Debbie, you’re normally smarter than this,” Lou says conversationally, taking a sip from Debbie’s wine glass after she takes a bite of chicken. “You need therapy.”

“Yeah, _right_ ,” Debbie scoffs through a mouthful of food, eyeing Lou dangerously when she almost downs the entire wine glass. “I’ll go to therapy the same day you stop feeding the dogs all our damn crackers-see, look at them, they’re begging.”

Murphy and Nugget are both at the table, eyes wide and innocent as they look at the chicken, mouths open and tongues hanging out hungrily.

“Baby, they’re just _standing_ there, keeping us company.”

“They’re begging.”

“They are not, they’re fine.” Lou pets the tops of their heads, assuring them, “You two are fine, she’s just mad because she knows she’s on the losing side of our argument.”

“I am not,” she says defensively, emptying the wine glass and spinning it around in her fingers. “You’re not getting laid until you say that King Kong will win.”

Lou’s eyes narrow and Debbie imitates her, brown eyes daring her to continue the argument so instead she says, all mock seriousness, “I want a divorce.”

“You’re not getting that, either,” Debbie says with an eye roll, crossing her arms petulantly. “Nothing until you admit that you’re wrong.”

“Yeah, we’ll see how long that lasts,” Lou responds, taking another bite of chicken as Debbie gets herself more wine, knowing Lou didn’t need a glass because she’d just take from Debbie’s anyway. Their dishwasher is broken, had been for nearly a month, and neither had gotten around to calling someone for repairs. Lou had been on dishwashing duty for a couple weeks and she hated washing dishes but she refused to allow Debbie to clean everything up in the kitchen after meals _and_ clean dishes so she used as few plates and glasses as possible to keep her job small.

“If I go to bed before you admit that you’re wrong, you can go undercover in this heist and I’ll be the driver,” Debbie offers, eyebrows arching and a confident grin on her face.

Lou returns the look, equally as confident in her argument and their eyes meet-

_Deal?_

_Deal._

-the silent agreement over within a second.

<><><><><><><><>

Lou wakes up from a loud clap of thunder that rattles the warehouse, making Nugget whine at the foot of the bed. He usually slept in his own bed, but when it’s stormy he wants to be with Debbie and Lou because he’s terrified of loud sounds despite him being the biggest dog of their six. He’s the only one of their dogs who ever ventures into their room, none of the others seemed to care where Debbie and Lou slept, but he can’t jump on the bed because it’s too high for his old, bad hips. They’d tried lowering the frame for him, but it couldn’t go down far enough and, as much as they love him, they aren’t going to buy an entirely new bed so he could sleep on their feet.

She listens to the rain pounding the windows-it’d been sprinkling during the King Kong and Godzilla argument but it’s obviously escalated-for a couple seconds and suddenly realizes Debbie isn’t next to her in bed.

With a groan, Lou throws the covers off of her, cold air hitting her exposed skin from the oversized t-shirt and underwear she’s sleeping in. Nugget stays at the foot of their bed, his big scared eyes earning him a soft kiss on his nose and Lou connects her phone to a small speaker in their room, playing piano sonatas for Nugget as she leaves.

“Deb?” Lou calls down the stairs, wondering if she had been serious when she’d said she wasn’t coming to bed until she heard that King Kong would beat Godzilla-which he wouldn’t, but that was a lie worth telling if that meant Debbie’s warm body would be pressed up against hers tonight. The bet meant nothing to her anyway, she really didn't care what she did in a heist as long as she's doing it with Debbie.

She walks into the kitchen, smiling when she sees that the dishes she’d left out to dry had been put away. The light over the table is still on and Debbie’s slouched over it, most likely asleep as Stevie, their oldest dog, lays peacefully at her feet, sitting up as Lou approaches.

“Debbie?” Lou asks, walking slowly, as not to startle her if she wakes up. Predictably, Debbie doesn’t even budge as she rests a hand on her shoulder, leaning over the chair to see her face squished against the blueprint, lips puckered slightly and nose resting on the paper.

Her smile widens a little more.

To most people, Debra Ocean is about as far from adorable as adorable gets; she’s a convicted felon. She could be charming or sexy or funny or quirky or sweet but _adorable_ would never be a word used to describe her.

But right here, with her passed out on the Bank of England’s blueprints-a heist that Danny had started to plan and left for Debbie to complete-adorable is the only word Lou can think of.

Maybe she’s the only one who gets to see the adorable side of Debbie; the one that becomes ridiculously clingy when she’s tired, the one who pouts like a child when she doesn’t receive their dogs’ affection, the one that whines when Lou wants to get out of bed before nine, the one that will tie her hair up twenty times in the morning trying to get it to look good before giving up and letting it stay in a bun that resembles a bird’s nest, the one that blushes cutely when Lou gives her a heartfelt compliment.

Lou reaches down and hooks one arm under the back of Debbie’s knees, the other secure against her back, smiling as Stevie gets up and trots off to where all their dogs’ beds are. She’s the most loyal to Debbie, who picked her up as a stray dog off the street one day, and had obviously been watching over her while she slept.

“Debbie?” Lou asks, loud enough that it’ll wake her up, brown eyes slowly opening, dazed and confused. “Put your arms around my neck, baby, you need to get to bed.”

She nods compliantly, warm arms wrapping around Lou as she presses a kiss to Debbie’s forehead, lips lingering in a smile when she feels the metal of the Ocean’s wedding ring on her skin. Ten years ago, she would’ve laughed in your face if you said she’d be married to Debbie and own six dogs but now it felt unbelievably right to share a bed with her each night and have a rescue shelter for a house. Debbie’s head rests on her shoulder as they make their way up the stairs, her hair tickling Lou’s nose with each step until she makes it to their bedroom.

Nugget’s eyes follow them as they enter, the piano music having obviously calmed him considerably, and when Lou sets Debbie down on the bed, the brunette’s clingy arms remain around her neck, keeping their bodies millimeters apart.

“Debbie, let go,” Lou says quietly, hands reaching the back of her neck, where Debbie’s fingers are firmly intertwined. “Come on-”

“No.” She sounds like a five year old being told to eat broccoli, whinny and immature and her arms tighten around Lou. “Stay here.”

Lou laughs, her head falling into the nape of Debbie’s neck, nuzzling the warm and soft skin for a minute as her body relaxes into her wife’s; their chests touching, hips fitting together, thighs resting between Debbie’s. She kisses the skin beneath her jaw before murmuring, “Let go of me, you can get back to sleep quicker.”

This position isn’t exactly comfortable because Debbie still has her shoes and belt on, Lou’s too tall to lay over Debbie for extended periods of time-they’ve tried before-and the sheets aren’t even pulled up around them.

Debbie hums sleepily before opening and closing her mouth a few times in that tired lip smacking thing people do when they’re waking up, her eyes opening groggily and she says, “Godzilla _might_ beat King Kong.”

Lou smiles slightly-because it isn’t a ‘might,’ Godzilla would fucking annihilate King Kong-and replies, “I told you, now let me go.”

Debbie refuses, her arms tight around Lou and her lips pressed against to the skin behind Lou’s ear and she’s so _warm_ that Lou wants to curl up to her and sleep forever. It’s a comfortably heated temperature, making her relaxed and tired and unable to let go of Debbie if she tried. She always feels cold when she’s not with Debbie, who radiates heat like a furnace, and can’t sleep through the night when they’re not sharing a bed because she starts to freeze.

Her time in jail had been a six year winter for Lou.

“If they were the same size…” A yawn interrupts her statement, the soft whine of it making Lou smile affectionately, “If they were the same size, Godzilla would lose.”

“Okay, baby, but Godzilla _is_ bigger than King Kong,” Lou reminds gently, shifting so she can look at her. This version of Debbie is secretly her favorite; too tired to comprehend what she’s doing, mind so blurred that she doesn’t remember what she’s said when she wakes up, eyes hazy and nearly innocent as they stare at her.

“I’m sorry.” She follows it up with a short kiss so Lou’s unable to ask what she’s sorry for-the argument hadn’t even been an argument, more of a passionate disagreement.  “You were right.” Her eyes slowly close and her grip loosens so Lou doesn’t bother with the ‘can you say that again?’ discussion they’d usually have.

Pushing up a little, Debbie’s fingers give and she’s able to get off their bed, stopping for a second to remove Debbie’s shoes at the foot, straddling Nugget’s now peacefully resting form. She glances around the room for a moment before she finds the oversized Penn State shirt they’d stolen probably fifteen years ago at a football game. Lou makes quick work of removing Debbie’s clothes, throwing her socks, pants, sweater, and bra to the floor without really giving a damn as to how they may wrinkle. She tugs at Debbie’s arm, pulling her half-asleep body into an upright position and working her arms and head through the holes of the shirt easily, having dressed her like this multiple times before, sometimes not sober and sometimes unconscious.

Lou lays down next to her, not having the chance to reach for Debbie before she curls into her side. Her bare left leg slips between Lou’s and she can feel the lace from her underwear brush her hip, the heat between Debbie’s thighs warming her skin. One of Debbie’s arms lays across Lou’s waist, hand splayed over her hip and fingers burning through her thin shirt.

“Good night,” Debbie mumbles against Lou’s shoulder, breath hot against her neck.

Lou kisses her hairline before her curled pointer finger comes underneath Debbie’s chin, nudging her face upwards. Debbie’s eyes open with her lifting head and Lou damn near _melts_ because Debbie and her indescribably breathtaking eyes will be the fucking death of her.

She kisses her again, hand ghosting from Debbie’s chin to her jaw, thumb barely brushing her ear as their mouths move against one another’s tenderly. Debbie still tastes like the wine she’d had earlier and Lou’s mind feels foggy, as if she’s getting drunk off the aftertaste and that makes her jaw slacken just a little, tongue slowly roaming without real purpose. It’s relaxed and wet and somehow not sloppy, despite the fact that Debbie is falling asleep through it and their lips never part, although they should probably breathe at some point.

Everything is warm; Debbie’s mouth, her body, her fingers making shapes on Lou’s hip, the blankets up to their torsos, the gentle piano ballad playing in the background, even the booming thunder has a melodious baritone sound to it. She knows Debbie’s too tired for anything more than a heated kiss, although she’d never admit to it, so she pulls away when she feels fingers tugging at the hem of her shirt.

“Good night,” she whispers as Debbie settles into her, half of her body resting on top of Lou’s and absolutely not giving a shit that her pointy chin is jabbing her chest painfully.

“I definitely think Godzilla would beat King Kong.” Debbie’s eyes are closed and her mouth barely moves as she mumbles it, but her tone clearly suggests that she’s given up on the argument and is finally thinking straight.

“So I win the bet?”

Debbie hums in agreement, her head nodding against Lou before she turns her face, cheek resting on the part of Lou’s shirt that’s over her heart.

Lou smiles to herself as she brushes Debbie’s hair out of her face, her peaceful resting features barely visible in the dark. It’s been nearly four years since she’d been released from jail and sometimes she still didn’t sleep well, waking up screaming or shoving Lou off of her or practically flying out of bed when she felt someone else in it with her. She’d gotten better at not thrashing around in her sleep because she could nearly kill herself with the guilt of physically assaulting Lou-she’d gotten a good number of bruises from Debbie’s nightmares-but no one’s perfect and it still happened at times. All Lou cared about was that Debbie no longer dreads going to sleep.

She pulls Debbie closer so that not even an atom could fit between their bodies and she rests her head on top of brunette hair, absentmindedly pressing a kiss as she adds, “I love you.”

Lou’s surprised when Debbie shifts her head-she’d thought she was asleep-and gently kisses the base of her neck before she returns, “I love you too.”

The piano music for Nugget and the harsh rain lulls Lou into relaxation, warm and content with Debbie using her as a pillow. The blankets are soft and she pulls at them so that they come up to Debbie’s chin, right around Lou’s breasts, and she feels unbelievably comfortable like this. Her fingers are in Debbie’s hair, twirling the long strands through her fingers, mindful not to get it caught on her engagement ring. Most nights, she takes her jewelry off but she’d forgotten and is in no position to get up and place it on the nightstand now. Debbie’s breathing is even and her ribcage is slowly rising and falling, Lou able to feel the movement more than see it, and her heart beats against Lou’s side, strong and steady. Her eyes close with one last featherlight kiss to Debbie’s hairline and she’s about to drift off into sleep when-

“Baby?” Debbie’s voice is quiet and muffled from resting it on Lou’s chest. “Would King Kong or the Hulk win?”

**Author's Note:**

> Also, please don't check my math-just ignorantly believe that it's right because I'm no math major and I don't care enough to make sure everything's accurate. Have a lovely, math free day :)


End file.
